The Mass is a progressive metal band from Oakland, California consisting of Matt Waters (lead vocals, sax), Tyler Cox (drums), Tom O'Donnell (guitar) and Matthew Solberg (bass). They recorded and released a five track self titled EP in 2002 on Whole Enchilada Records. In 2003, THE MASS released their debut album "City of Dis" in Europe/UK on Monotreme Records. "City of Dis" would be re-released in Northern America in 2005 on Crucial Blast Records.

When, where and by whom
was your band born ? Did any of you, past and present members, play in any other
bands before joining up in your band ? Why did you choose that name ?

We started in 2000
through posts on Craigslist. We were all
in various bands of limited consequence through the years. For the first few
months it was only Tyler and I. I seem to remember us getting drunk at the bar
one night and deciding to use The Mass as the name. It stuck. Once the other
guys joined we actually tried changing it a few times during the years but
always ended up coming back to it.

Over to your two albums.
Your debut album City Of Dis was released in 2003. Please tell us more about
this album.

After the first EP we
started getting into more of a groove with what we wanted to do – which was to
get more complicated! The songs got a lot heavier and much more
aggressive as well. There were a lot of things going on but there’s a great
energy that was captured. This was also
our first recording with Tim Green and he really helped with getting these songs
together. We recorded all the basics live then set about with overdubs. Tim had
some great ideas for layering and just enhanced the songs overall.

We released this first
in Europe on Monotreme Records (http://www.monotremerecords.com/)
Then in the U.S on Crucial Blast
(http://www.crucialblast.net/)
. The Crucial Blast release is
enhanced and has a video of a live performance “We Enslaved Elves to build our
Death Machine” at 40th st. Warehouse in Oakland.

Your second album
Perfect Picture Of Wisdom And Boldness was released in 2005. Please tell us more
about this album.

After ‘City of Dis’ we
tried to become a little more focused. I’m not sure that actually happened but
“Perfect Picture” definitely has a different feel. Longer passages, more
mid-tempo but within it there’s still millions of riffs flying all over the
place. Also, Matt and I paid more attention to the guitar/sax interplays –
harmonies and runs.

Tim Green recorded us
again. There’s some beautiful things on this album, little psychedelic and
atmospheric turns that I think turned out nicely- see “Meditations on Some the
Carcass”.

Again, this was released
both on Monotreme and Crucial Blast. We toured a lot for these albums which was
both good and bad - Great times in Europe, sh*t times in the U.S.

You have also released a
couple of Eps called The Mass (2002) and Holocene, #6 (2007). Please tell us
more about these two Eps.

The Mass s/t was a mixed
bag. There’s some good on there and some things I’d rather not remember. It was
the first songs all four of us were involved working on and you can get a
glimpse of what’s to come. I actually just listened to a live show from 2002 and
we played the EP straight through. I think those songs were better
live!

The first EP was
recorded by Ben Adrian and released on Whole Enchilada records out of
Oakland.

Holocene #6 was recorded
after Matt Solberg left the band. Our friend Andy Lund stepped in on bass and we
played for about 1 year together. These were the 4 songs we wrote during that
time. It’s great. We tried to pare
things down a bit but also wrote the 11 minute Ilirska Bistrica that close the
EP. It’s totally different than anything we had done before – it was basically a
riff idea that Tyler came up with and we just beat it in to submission over and
over and over. Good stuff.

We self-released
Holocene #6 and got our friend John Wayshak to produce some incredible artwork
for the release.

Your music has been
described as experimental metal. But how would you describe you music and which
bands would you compare yourself with ?

I guess experimental
metal is close enough. I hate micro-labels for music. When people ask me to
describe it I usually tell them: Weird Metal with Saxophone.

There’s obvious
comparisons with Yakuza, some Zorn, etc because of the sax. There’s a band in Belarus called Kusudama.
Bascially we get compared to any heavy band with a saxophone.

What have you been up to
since 2007 and what is your latest update ? What is your plans for this year and
beyond ?

After Andy left the band
we have been on hiatus. Every few months we will meet up for Korean BBQ dinner –
we usually order Galbi and Bulgogi for the grill while Matt orders Dolsot
Bimbimbap.

I recently re-vamped our
website and added a couple shows to our youtube channel – one from Bull and Gate
in London with Matt Solberg on bass and the other from Hemlock Tavern in San
Francisco with Andy Lund on bass. http://www.youtube.com/user/trappedunderaice

I’m also going through a back log of
old live recordings to see if there’s anything worth releasing.

I’m never sure what the future holds
for The Mass. I sometimes didn’t even know while we were active.

To wrap up this
interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ?

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